Page 41 of The Haunting of Paynes Hollow
And what do I want? To have imagined it? Imagined all of it?
No, I just want it gone. Erased by time and the elements.
It is not gone. It’s right there, a spot where the bark had been chipped away and a picture carved in the open space. It’s little more than a stick figure. A girl with pigtails, her hands raised to her chest, holding something there. At the bottom, the initials: A.V.
Time flickers, and I’m twelve, staring at this picture carved into the wood, hearing footsteps behind me.
“Do you like it?” Austin says.
I don’t answer. I know better. I don’t even look over at him. I just stare at that picture, trying to figure out what it is. I knowwhoit is—who it always is. But what does it depict? I’m afraid to guess.
“It’s you,” Austin says. “You’re trying to pull out the knife.”
My breath catches, and my gaze flies to the figure’s torso. I see it then. She’s holding something sticking from her chest. A knife. Blood drips down. Drops of blood that he’s painted bright red, the only color on the carving.
I don’t look at him.
I set my shoulders, lift my chin, and start to walk away.
He grabs my arm. I yank free, and stumble. My foot slides, and Ifall to the ground. I scramble to get up, but he kicks my leg out from under me.
“You’re kinda stupid, aren’t you, Sam?” he says. “I tell you not to ignore me, and you keep doing it. I make that”—he points at the picture—“toshowyou why you shouldn’t ignore me, and you still do it.”
My hands clench at my sides. “I want you to leave me alone.”
“Or what? You’ll tell your mommy? You know what she’ll say—that you shouldn’t be mean to me. I like you, that’s all. I just don’t know how to show it.”
My face flushes. That’s what everyone says when I complain about Austin following me around.
He likes you.
He’s a nice boy.
Just play with him.
That’s all he wants.
I swallow. That’s how it started. Everyone thought it was cute. We were just kids, after all. He had a crush. Nothing wrong with that.
As much as I’d hated being around Austin, I’d given in. I’d been a good girl. I’d been a nice girl. I played with him and made sure he was included when the summer kids played together.
Only this year things changed. He didn’t want me playing with the other kids. He didn’t want metalkingto other kids. I ignored that. I might have been forced to play with Austin, but that didn’t mean I liked him, and now that we weren’t little kids anymore, I decided I could stop hanging out with him. So he’d started doing things like this. Carving pictures of me in trees. Me stabbed. Me hanging. Me dead.
My gut told me that this was different. My mom wouldn’t make me play with him if I showed them this.
But what if they did? What if Mom didn’t see what I saw and said it was just a crush?
I could tell Dad. He’d always said that I didn’t need to play with Austin if I didn’t want to, and if I showed him these pictures and told him about the dead squirrels—
“Sam.”
I jump, slingshot back to the real world as I spin around. For amoment, time stutters, and I’m turning to see thirteen-year-old Austin looming over me. Only it’s not Austin. It’s Ben. And he’s standing back, frowning.
“Hey,” I manage to croak, hoping my voice won’t shake too much with a single word.
I move to the side quickly, away from that tree, away from the picture. But even as I do, his gaze shoots to it.
“You saw that?” he says.
